Microtonal (M)Usic from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

Last weekend, I attended the excellent "Beyond: Microtonal Music Festival" at the Andy Warhol Museum & the University of Pittsburgh. There were 2 symposia & 3 concerts. It was the 1st festival I'd ever attended dedicated exclusively to microtonal music. I was very stimulated. As a response to this, I decided to post my microtonal music to the Internet Archive. All of this work of mine is almost completely unknown & on the occasions when it was performed for an audience the microtonal aspects weren't emphasized.

I probably 1st became conscious of microtonal music when I acquired a copy of the Columbia Masterworks "Music of Our Time" record entitled "The World of Harry Partch" in 1973. I was 19 or 20 years old. I had possibly already conceived of my own instrument by then & done a line drawing of someone resembling me playing it - but I hadn't built it. Not only had Partch built his instruments, they were beautifully conceived & created AND they were tuned microtonally AND in Just Intonation - which I'd probably never heard of OR heard before. Making matters even more intense for me was that Partch had been a hitch-hiker & drifter, as I had been, &, as I later learned, had even composed music about it ("Barstow" & "Bitter Music" being the 2 examples that spring to mind).

By early 1974 I'd picked up another great Columbia Masterworks Partch: this time the multi-record box-set of "Delusion of the Fury" that featured a booklet & an additional record that demonstrated & explained the instruments. It might've been in 1975 that I learned that a performance of "Delusion of the Fury" was scheduled to occur in NYC but I was too 'old' now to be picked up hitch-hiking as easily as I had previously & too poor to get to NYC otherwise. I missed my chance to witness Partch himself - something I'll forever regret! After discovering Partch, microtonality was on my map & I was looking for other microtonal music recordings - what I subsequently found being beyond the purview of this essay.

My (M)Usic has never really centered around tonality, micro- or otherwise. Yes, I started off taking piano lessons around ages 6 to 10, yes, I started playing rock & folk music as a teenager, yes, I took violin lessons when I was 18, yes, I started improvising when I was 19 - but I don't think I really took off until I started seriously composing when I was 20 & was inspired by things like electro-acoustic music, graphic notation, prose scores, & aleatoric pieces - none of which were centered around tonality.

I was much more interested in the IDEA behind my pieces & in having these ideas be as original as I could make them. I didn't want to advance a tradition, I wanted to make sound pieces that sounded as little like previously existing sound works as I could manage. Of course, that's an oversimplification & I was far from always successful but, still, that's enough of an introduction to my intentions.

During the Beyond Festival I was captivated by how intensely detailed the attention was to tonality in most of the work discussed & performed. It was fantastic! It was also completely different from my own uses of microtonality. It became even clearer to me than it had already been that many of my pieces, especially the larger-scaled ones, are timelines on which events happen (as with all music, I suppose, but the focus on that is more prominent in my own work) & that I create the events to be clearly differentiable from each other in multiple respects. As such, microtonality is just another factor in creating levels of articulation to help keep things audibly separate when simultaneous as well as sequential.

In a sense, this is an analog to my social philosophy. My conception of 'harmony' is not a blending of similar ratios - instead it's a coexistence of dramatically different elements that retain their individuality & 'harmonize' by having equal prominence.

From 1994 to 1997, I worked on a large-scale solo piece called "Triple-S Variety Show". The "Triple-S" referred to the synthesizers, sampler, & sequencer that I was trying to learn more deeply. The synthesizers were 2 Kawai K1m wave-table synthesizers that my friend Sarmad had sold me cheaply & a DX27S algorithm synthesizer that my friend Dave had given me. I'd bought the 'primitive' 8-bit Mirage sampler/sequencer. Additional equipment used were 2 to 4 Radio Shack 4-channel mixers, a MIDI-Patcher, & a Multi-Verb effects unit.

Having spent 1990 to 1994 working with my "Official" Project that had 2 to 17 members & that revolved around a complex aleatoric system of what cofounder Neil Feather & I called "C.A.M.U.s" (Cue Activated Modular Units) I wanted to explore a similar modularity that could be performed by myself alone.

With the K1m I could build sounds 'from scratch' with 32 simultaneous wave forms that when combined created what I called "mini-sequences". The Mirage sampler was limited to something like a range divided into 2 halves with each half having 3 seconds or less for samples within it. The Mirage sequencer had a 333 note limit that would malfunction if I were to do things like pitch-bend the 333rd note, etc, etc.. The equipment was much more limited than what I use now but it was great for my purposes & I was glad to explore the limits. I could program the DX27S but I didn't really like the highly technical nature of its structure & didn't find the sounds I created very satisfactory. I could also program the Multi-Verb to have a sequence of effects that I could cycle through by pressing a foot-pedal.

My (d) compositional process centered around my making a sound 1st. If I used the wave-table synths I tried to exploit specific technical characteristics. Then I'd create a Mirage sequence that would feature whatever was special about the new sound(s). As I got more sophisticated, I explored ways of tweaking the Mirage's limitations to produce results not necessarily intended to be available by the manufacturer - what has since come to be known, if I understand correctly, as Black MIDI.

In addition to the sequences, I made sounds that served as transitions & other sounds that were meant to be played soloistically. Since the sequences & samples were saved on 3.5" floppy discs that had to be loaded into the Mirage & since that loading process was somewhat slow, I was thinking in terms of moving from one sequence to another with intermediary activity that wasn't sequence-based. During the last week of 1994 & the 1st 5 weeks of 1995, I created at least 5 microtonal wave-table sounds: "16 1/4s", "Rising /4s", "32", "Fixed 16s", & "5 X 10".

By no later than the fall of 1997, I had created 123 sequences & written a 39 page explanatory essay in which I tried to explicate how & why each of the sequences had been made. The introduction to that essay begins as follows:

"This document is being assembled because I realize that I'm likely to forget what many of the special design features & intentions were behind these sequences as I get further away in time from their creation & as I play them less. In fact, I've probably already forgotten many of them. Contemporaneously with the writing of this text, I'm tape-recording the playing of these sequences - 1st in "pure" form &, 2nd, as an example of how they were intended to be played "in performance". In some cases, more or less than 2 playings may be called for to be representative. Most of these sequences are meant to be looped - wch is not how they'll be presented in the recordings.

"For note identification purposes, C1 is the lowest C on my DX27S keyboard. Therefore, C3 = middle C," [That's using Yamaha's numbering system - which is no longer the system I use. Instead I now refer to middle C as "C4" - but when I quote from this 1997 document I'll stick to the system I was using then] "the C 1 octave below C1 is C0, the C 2 octaves below C1 is C-1, etc.. From C to B is an octave - therefore the B to the left of C is in a lower octave: ie: C1 is adjacent to B0.

"Comparisons of instrument tuning differences reflect the state of tunings as of July 20, '96 & may change through Master Tune adjustments etc in the future. These possible changes may be made as an outgrowth of studies such as those explained in the 1st entry below." [Not reproduced here]

Of the 5 microtonal voices listed above, I made sequences for 3 of them:

Sequence 042. "Fixed 16s "Microtonal" 'Ritual'" (1994 or 1995) (selection A here on the Internet Archive)

Sequence 043. "5 X 10th Tones" (1994 or 1995) (selection B here on the Internet Archive)

& Sequence 076. "Rising Quarter-Tones Driver" (1996) (selection E here on the Internet Archive)

In my "Sequences" essay I explain the above as follows:

"{42.} 2. Fixed 16s "Microtonal" Ritual" - :47 @ 48

""FIXED 16s" is another K1m sound that I programmed. It's divided into overlapping parts. Each part has a "purist" section in wch a single tone exists & an "overlap" section in wch it's combined w/ its neighbor. Each of the "purist" sounds is triggered by 4 keys on my 5 "octave" keyboard (w/ the exception of the highest wch is triggered by 7 keys) & each of the overlaps is triggered by 3 or 4 keys (w/ the exception of the "high-hat"). Each of the "purist" sections consists of only 1 fixed pitch - w/ each adjacent pitch being 1 16th tone apart. As such, the entire keyboard activated range is only 1 "semi-tone". Each part has a different tone simulating an acoustic instrument:

"C1-D#1: Gong
E1-G1: Gong + Japanese String
G#1-B1: Japanese String
C2-D2: Japanese String + Organ
D#2-F#2: Organ
G2-A#2: Organ + Snare Drum
B2-D3: Snare Drum
D#3-F3: Snare Drum + Brass
F#3: High-Hat + Brass
G3-A#3: Brass
B3-D4: Brass + ContraBass
D#4-F#4: ContraBass
G4-A4: ContraBass + Percussive 1
A#4-C#5: Percussive 1
D5-F5: Percussive [1] + Percussive 2
F#5-C6: Percussive 2

"1 of the interesting things about this K1m multi-sound is that fast fingering yields something closer to a roll/tremolo than to a multi-pitch sequence. Of course, this is typical of many split KB percussion sound groups but 1 of the things fairly unique about this is the overlap sections. If I were to play, eg, E5 + D5 + C5 + B4 + A4 in quick succession it wd sound like an astonishingly tight trio in wch Percussion 2 & 1 played the 1st 2 notes of a short roll in unison w/ Percussion 1 continuing w/ the next 2 notes solo & ContraBass coming in in unison on the last note. Glissandi, of course, are an extension of this.

"I've called this sequence a "ritual" because its narrow pitch range & halting & stilted pace rhythms seem like the correlative to the formalized movements of a processional to me. Only the ContraBass sound is manipulated w/ pitch shifting to push it out of the "semi-tone" range." - p 8

"{43.} 3. 5 X 10th Tones - :59 @ 48

"I programmed this K1m sound so that it wd consist of 1 "octave" of 10th tones - ie: a 60 tones per "octave" division. However, due to the K1m's technical limitations, this was accomplished by having each group of 12 notes (ie: each "octave" of the conventional keyboard configuration) be the conventional tempered tuning semi-tone" apart w/ each group being only a 10th tone apart. As such, to play the notes in ascending sequence, the player wd have to play: C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C#1, C#2, C#3, C#4, C#5, D1, D2, etc.. - ending on C6. This sequence simply takes advantage of multi-tracking to overcome the difficulties of the above." - p 9

"{76.} 3. Rising Quarter-Tones Driver - 8:39 @ 48

"The K1m "Rising /4s" voice that this was created for was made over a yr & a half earlier than when I felt inspired to create a sequence for it. The sequence was created largely to explore the potentials of the sound that I had almost forgotten.

"Similar to the "Fixed 16s" voice, the sound is divided up into 8 overlapping groups - i.e.: the lowest 4 notes are "pure", the next 4 an overlap between the 1st sound & the 2nd sound, the next 4 notes are a "pure" version of the 2nd sound, etc.. Unlike the "Fixed 16s", these sounds are fixed to 1 pitch no matter wch of their activating keys are touched. Furthermore, each sound is a mini-sequence of 4 ascending quarter-tones - w/ each group being made up of different sounds from the others. the lowest 27 notes are all to the left, the next 4 notes are a mix of right & left, & the next 30 notes are all to the right. These various K1m voices are designed to produce stereo results in different ways so that even if I don't remember the specifics of their configurations while I'm playing them there'll still be alotof variety.

"This sequence is a fairly long droning experience w/ subtle stereo tone colour events happening along the way @ structurally somewhat unpredictable intervals. This is both undramatic & non-beat based.

"In the 2nd recorded version," [the one presented here] "the non-dramatic subtlety is used as a vehicle for various Multi-Verb treatments w/ some occasional other "events" popping up now & then. This is the main sequence so far in wch the use of multiple effects is central to what's interesting about the final product. It becomes as if the drone is an object moving thru various types of spaces - different sized rooms, echo-chambers, tunnels, "outer-space", etc.." - p 16

While these sequences can be presented as pieces on their own, they're really meant to be part of a bigger, more complex, whole that's an entire "Triple-S Variety Show". The 1st of these Triple-Ss (not always called such) was recorded on August 19/20, 2014. The 8th of them was recorded on January 8, 2015 & was labeled "tENTATIVELY "Microtonal"" (selection C here on the Internet Archive). This would've been recorded after the 1st 2 of the microtonal sequences described above were (d) composed & would've been the 1st Triple-S to incorporate them & the other microtonal sounds. This is broken into 2 parts here to represent the 2 tape sides of the original cassette recording.

One of my favorite pieces at the "Beyond" Festival was a keyboard duet of a piece called "Rad" (2003) by composer Enno Poppe as performed by the Ray-Kallay Duo. If I understand correctly, each keyboard had a laptop connected to it that sent out a MIDI signal to switch the voicings - w/ each voice being tuned differently. The keyboardists were playing from scores & had to adapt to these very quick tuning changes. It was amazing & I gave it a standing ovation.

I was reminded of my own "Bogus Piano Concerto" (summer 1995) which was recorded 6 times - twice in its early phases solo by myself, 3 times in collaboration withe the very talented John Henry Nyenhuis in rehearsal, &, finally, at the Music Gallery in Toronto with John Henry & myself on September 8, 1995 (selection D here on the Internet Archive). The reason why "Rad' reminded me of my "Bogus Piano Concerto" is because in the BPC I sat across from John Henry while he played the DX27S controller & I manipulated the other electronics to determine what sounds he would trigger. There was a rough outline as to when I'd make changes & what type of changes they would be but John Henry didn't know exactly when & what I'd do to change what happened while he played. This meant that, as with "Rad", the tunings changed as he played.

Not only did the BPC incorporate what's now called "Black MIDI" in the way that at least one of the sequences deliberately overdrove the limited sequencer, it also involved things like changing the tuning so that only one note played no matter which notes & what quantity of notes JH was playing. I was trying to surprise the attentive audience. This recording was made by Paul Hodges at the Music Gallery & is divided into its 2 movements: 1. "Left Wing Movement", 2. "Chicken Wing Movement". More detailed information can be gotten about this piece by looking at the notes for my "Piano Illiterature - Volume I" on the Internet Archive - where rehearsal 5 is presented.

After the "Rising Quarter-Tones Driver" was created, the 1st Triple-S to incorporate it was the the 21st Triple-S, recorded on July 18, 1996. I just present the 2nd half of the 2nd side of that recording here to present the part in which the sequence appears (selection F here on the Internet Archive). A recording of the full 90 minute session is published by my WIdémoUth Tapes as "Triple-S Variety 'Show' - Volume 2".

Another piece that I liked very much in the "Beyond" Festival was "1950-C" for restrung classical guitar by composer Paul Clift as performed by guitarist Daniel Lippel (if not by the other half of the guitar duo, Mak Grgic). If I understand correctly, for this piece the guitar was restrung so that the 2 lowest strings were paired, the 2 middle strings were paired, & the 2 highest strings were paired - possibly to make quarter-tone tuning or another microtuning easier.

This piece, too, reminded me of an experiment of mine from a May 6, 1997, session. I was part of a loose-knot collective of improvisors called the "Volunteers Collective". This 'group' has gone through many incarnations & started in 1989. One of the incarnations is a recurring group of sessions at the "Red Room" which is the performance space connected to "Normal's Books", a bookstore I cofounded in BalTimOre. These sessions were (/are still?) called "Crap Shoots at the Red Room".

For this session, I borrowed a guitar from John Berndt & retuned it in quarter-tones probably in this way:

the low E was retuned to F#
the A was retuned to F##
the D was retuned to E
the G was retuned to between E & F
the B was retuned to C#
the high E was retuned to C##

I then improvised on this - probably placing emphasis on moving from one note to a quarter-tone higher or lower by fretting across the pairs created by the above tuning & playing from one to the other.

This Crap Shoot started off with a group free improvisation & then moved to a series of duets (each about one minute long), etc.. The brief excerpt presented here is of a duet I played with contrabassist John Hughes. I find that the quarter-tone playing is barely audible as such but this was still the most comprehensible selection I could find in the overall session recording.

- March 5, 2015E.V. notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

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